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Tireless Educational Choice Advocate Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum Dies at 75

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Morristown NJ, Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum educational choice advocate . In efforts to bring better education to children in New Jersey and beyond, Teitelbaum was seen as a trendsetter and a source of inspiration to many. He passed away on Oct. 29 at the age of 75 after a battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum was a bit of a local celebrity  when it came to school choice and a periodic reader of this blog.

“His commitment was inspiring,” said Bret Schundler, a former Jersey City mayor and two-time gubernatorial candidate who made school choice central to his political career. “Whenever I would become tired of fighting what seemed like an endless uphill battle, I would see him doing whatever he could without tiring or becoming discouraged, and I would keep on going.”

Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum perused this cause as the administrator of the Rabbinical College of America, and on a national level—most notably, in his decades-long struggle to improve the educational choices of minority children through the use of education vouchers.

Among his many accomplishments he founded and lead the Alliance for Free Choice in Education, a grassroots organization of which he took the unassuming title of “secretary.”

Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum felt  it was a civil-rights issue since a quality education is a right enshrined by the constitution—one he saw as almost out of reach for inner-city children and those whose religious needs that prevented them from attending public schools.

One thought on “Tireless Educational Choice Advocate Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum Dies at 75

  1. Um…who ?

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